I'm a gilder, technical diver, sailor, wing foiler, SUP surfer, writer, classical musician and a documentary film maker.
I have retired from classical music after forty years in the business. Now it's mostly sport, restoration and a little bit of teaching.
I've lived in London, New York City, Los Angeles, Brussels, Cologne, Potsdam NY, Melbourne, Sydney and now I live in Barcelona but until this last move, they were all chosen for me by either music studies or work.
Barcelona was the exception:
Moving to my final city at the age of forty-nine was far rougher than any previous change of address, and I expect never to move city again.
New York City had its claws in me for twenty years during which time I went from Doctoral viola student to Professor, from SCUBA diving instructor to underwater film maker, from blogger to reporter at the New York Post, from commercial video editor to documentary film producer, and from tourist to U.S. citizen.
Moving to Spain meant speaking another new language, practicing up on the viola again - having left it in the case for nearly a decade.
The Barcelona Symphony invited me to lead the section, which I found quite challenging as there was a great deal of repertoire that was new to me, having spent my career in quartets and chamber orchestras, and I was no longer accustomed to moving between leading a section and switching to solo mode when the score required it. I eventually moved myself back into the section as a freelancer for a few years, and also played occasionally in the cramped pit with the opera orchestra, housed in the Liceu Opera House.
I must admit that I never liked playing in groups larger than a small chamber orchestra, and really missed all the baroque and classical music that had been my bread and butter for 30 years.
I met my wife, Rinat Shaham, back in 2001. Her career as an opera singer has been thrilling to watch. She has my total respect, surviving in the opera world for more than thirty years, outlasting not only thousands of other opera singers, but also agents, their agencies, and even opera houses. She's singing better than ever now and her career is flourishing. Her most recent recording: Bluebeard's Castle has won a BBC magazine award.
I currently spend a great deal of time in the sea, wing foiling, paddle surfing, sailing, and scuba diving with my instructor friends - I worked as a scuba instructor here for a while.
I've published a couple of instructional books in my areas of expertise, and also, just for fun, two spy fiction novels, written under a pen name.
The Vietnam documentary that I shot and edited, has been picked up by Australian television (SBS) and is is available here.